September 2019

Central Asia officials in Taipei to study metro system

Transportation officials from Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, and Moldova arrived in Taipei on Wednesday on a week-long visit to study the city's public transportation network.

These Central Asian and East European countries are recipient members of the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD), to which Taiwan has provided vital support since its establishment in 1991.
Lily Hsu, director-general of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs' (MOFA) Department of International Organization, said at a welcome ceremony that transportation system management has always been a big challenge for metropolitan cities, and Taipei is no exception.
For years, transportation experts in Taipei have been devising solutions such as the Easy Card transit payment system, she said.
Hopefully, the exchanges between Taiwan and EBRD countries will bring greater technical cooperation between them, she said.
Taiwan has a longstanding partnership with the bank and has helped EBRD countries to transition from centrally planned to market economies, she said.
Jean-Patrick Marquet, director of the EBRD's municipal and environmental infrastructure department, thanked the Taiwan government for its support and expressed the hope that Taiwan would share its Easy Card experience with EBRD countries.
Murat Kudyshev, deputy mayor of the Kazakhstan city of Almaty, said he was very impressed with Taipei's metro system.
He invited Taiwan officials to help build transportation projects in Almaty, where the population is expected to grow from around 1.4 million to six million in six years.
The EBRD is an international financial institution that supports projects from central Europe to central Asia. The Bank fosters transitions to open and democratic market economies.